In recent years, mobile communication services have expanded and increased in popularity, around the world. Many advanced networks offer wireless mobile communication service for voice calls, mobile messaging services (e.g. text and/or multimedia) and data communications. The mobile messaging services have been used for various purposes, e.g. from exchanging messages between mobile station users, to delivering alerts to mobile station users by content providers.
An alerts service delivers a short messaging service (SMS) message or a multimedia messaging service (MMS) message to a mobile station to notify a mobile station user of an event or information in which the mobile station user is interested. To subscribe to the alerts delivery service, the mobile station user has to visit a platform provided by a content provider, e.g. a website for a sports service such as ESPN, and to subscribe to the service via the platform provided by the content provider.
The content provider platform provides the mobile station user with categories and types of alerts made available by the content provider. The available categories and types of alerts are those that have been selected and defined by the content provider, and the mobile station user has to pick from among only the categories and types offered by the platform of the particular content provider. This unilateral alerts subscription cannot always satisfy the mobile station user's demands for receiving alerts on various topics and information of most interest to the user. A provider may not offer alerts with regard to all the topics of interest to a particular user, which prevents the user from obtaining desired alerts from a particular provider. Alternatively, the categories/types may be too broad for a user's particular narrow interest, which results in the user receiving many undesired alerts on topics of little or no interest to the user.
If one content provider does not offer alerts with regard to all the topics of interest to a particular user, and as a result, the mobile station user wants to receive alerts provided by multiple content providers, the mobile station user has to visit platforms of a number content providers and subscribe to alerts services of the various different content providers respectively. This traditional alerts delivery service requires the mobile station users to establish and manage multiple subscriptions to respective content providers, a cumbersome process. For example, if the mobile station user wants to receive alerts service messages from “ESPN,” “CNN,” and “ABC,” the mobile station user has to visit the subscription sites for “ESPN,” “CNN,” and “ABC,” individually, and repeatedly subscribe to and input various preferences and/or similar personal information to select categories and types of alerts for alerts services of “ESPN,” “CNN,” and “ABC,” respectively.
Hence, a need exists for an intelligent alerts messaging service to provide a mobile station user with alerts of his or her interest from various resources. Another need exists for an intelligent messaging alerts delivery service to simplify a subscription process to register for receiving alerts from a plurality of content providers.